BILBO

For Par Lindh,words are poor,the founder of Swedish Art Rock Society,which marked the sign of progressive rock's renaissance in the 90's.Wishing to release an album based on J.R.R. Tolkien's writings,Par asked the help of the PAR LINDH PROJECT guitarist Bjorn Johanson,a gifted young musician.The result of this collaboration was this ''Bilbo'' album,released in 1996.

Anyone expecting some ultra-soft,pastoral,Medieval type of music will be surprised by the resemblances between this work and PAR LINDH PROJECT's albums.''Bilbo'' achieves a nice balance between Medieval tunes,melodic Retro-sounding Prog and bombastic Symphonic Music.Par Lindh is responsible for all the keyboards work plus the drums,his lush organ sounds are fantastic,the grand piano work is dreamy,not to refer the majestic synth explorations and the mighty mellotron presented around,but there is much more than these going on.Johansson prooves to be a great follower,his style is somewhere between MIKE OLDFIELD's diversity and Jean-Luc Payssan's (from MINIMUM VITAL) harmonic playing,he is also responsible for the basses,harps an mandolins heard throughout.Beauty queen Magdalena Hagberg (R.I.P.) lends her sensitive vocal chors in some tracks to make the album very story-telling.It is of great pleasure to realize that this album has nothing to do with other Tolkien-related projects which tend to be rather cheesy at the end,''Bilbo'' holds some very passionate music full of tension and elegant calmness.

This first collaboration between these two talented guys ended succesfully and the aim of this album is almost fullfilled.I am not totally overblown by ''Bilbo'',but this is really a great record closer to the likes of a Progressive Rock fan than a Tolkien-addicted type of listener,and that's a good thing in my books.Strongly recommended,3.5 stars.